Jack F. Kemp's Legacy to Be Passed Along to Future Generations

The Legacy and Future of Entrepreneurial Capitalism

Kemp, along with Congressman John Lewis
and 40 other members of Congress, on the
historic Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma,
Alabama, as part of the Faith and Politics
Institute's civil rights pilgrimage to honor the
40th anniversary of the Voting Rights March
of 1965.

One of the greatest challenges facing our nation in the 21st century is to understand the roots of our prosperity and teach succeeding generations the classical, liberal political and economic ideas on which the Founders established our republic more than 230 years ago.

The economic success of the last 25 years—which has spanned four administrations—suggests that we have learned much about the fundamentals of democratic capitalism. Although far from perfect and not without its setbacks, our nation has sought to enlarge the dream of equality of opportunity through the rule of law, greater access to capital, and economic growth. Today, however, our economy and the roots of prosperity—capital formation and job creation—are under threat by politicians and candidates who would favor economic stability and static security over growth and opportunity for all.

Kemp speaks at an AEI event with Ambassador
Jeane Kirkpatrick and Hamid Karzai, president
of Afghanistan.

Steve Forbes, chairman and CEO of Forbes, Inc., has said, "Other than President Ronald Reagan himself, few people in the political world have had more influence on the last quarter century of wealth creation and rising levels of entrepreneurial business expansion than Jack F. Kemp." Leading journalists from Robert Bartley (former editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal, now deceased), syndicated columnist Robert Novak, and Herbert G. Klein (editor emeritus of the Copley Newspapers), to William O'Neil of Investor's Business Daily, Larry Kudlow of CNBC, and Neil Cavuto of FOX Business Network, all give testimony to the seminal role played by Congressman and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Jack F. Kemp in our nation's unparalleled economic expansion. From a Dow Jones Industrial Average of 767 in 1982 to near 14,000 recently, and with the creation of millions of new jobs, to the more than 50 percent increase in the total wealth of our nation, the great success of these policies is simply unprecedented. Yet more work is needed to understand and articulate this vision of America's unique example to the whole world.